Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Press one for.........................

Now while it is true that currently my mood can only be described as "bitch on wheels" there is one thing guaranteed to make me lose my temper SO badly that angels weep with sorrow and small puppies hide in corners.

(no, not my children, although currently they are running a close second)

AUTOMATED TELEPHONE SERVICES.

You know the ones.

Press one for this,

Press two for that.

Now while we have now got used to this being part of our daily telephone life what I can't abide is the fact that those buggers now seem to have got smart.

Side note. Why do we talk to the automated voice like it is a person? Or swear at it even? Or is that just me?

Where was I?

Smart automated services. It used to be that you pressed 1, 2 or 3 and then you got to speak to the correct person. NOW you can end up typing out a whole other telephone number before THEN being placed in a queue to finally speak to someone.

AND WE ARE PAYING FOR THE PRIVILEGE!!!!

Tricky little buggers.

But now I have come across a system so cruel, so mean and so evil it makes GP receptionists look like amateurs.

I pressed one,

I pressed three,

(I swore a little bit)

I pressed five

(I swore a little more)

and THEN, it told me there was no-one to take my call and hung up on me!!!!

IT HUNG UP ON ME!!!!!!

It made me want to press 1, 3 and 5 again so I could hang up on it first.

No-one hangs up on me,

It's automated, it should do as I tell it to. I pressed the right buttons. In the right order. If it is that bloody clever why can't it give me the option to carry on holding, I'm obviously prepared to hold a while, I pressed all the sodding buttons. I even had a cup of fresh hot coffee and a book to read while I wait. Now it has hung up on me, I feel cheated.

I was ready to listen to crap music and wait for a while. And now I have been robbed of that experience!

See, Smart little automated systems.

First company I can find that puts me directly through to a human being I can talk to, will keep my business forever.

What do you think about these automated services?

Are you ok pressing 1,3,2, and 3?

Or do they make you want to reach down a phone and eat the eyes of the person who developed the system?

8 comments

What I can never understand is that they have the smart computer who directs your call by pressing 1,5,2 and 6 but where is the smart little brother computer who takes your message when the person you want is not there?

I despise automated phone systems. I don't like the mildly authoritative manner in which they tell me to press buttons."Press 1 for blah blah" "Don't tell me what to do, I'll press whatever sodding button I like!"

But what is even worse is the "matey" automated service. My mobile contract provider is the worst, it's all "Hey, we've made a few changes, let me run through them with you" in a really chirpy voice... grrrr!

I usually want to rip out the heart of whoever designed these technological monstrosities and feed it to them. Don't even get me started on the time I was "Rick Rolled" by my internet service provider. *bashes head against wall*

Right with you! I have been hung up on by an phone system too and I wanted to drive to their offices and find someone to slap.

My other major bug bear is the companies that out source their telesales to some far flung reach of the Empire and you get some poor lad who claims his name is "Bob" trying to earn his wage a week by selling you stuff you dont want or need. I earn my money by phoning people and selling them stuff and its not easy, but it would be a bloody site harder if I was on minimum wage and had to phone busy people in India to do it, its not the person that calls, its the Company's that use them that I hate.

A piece of advice - do NOT try to call the Royal Mail (or you may become so enraged that you cause the apocalypse). When trying to report a missing parcel, I pressed numbers ad nauseum, I held, and I held, and I held. Then, about half an hour after first dialling, I got through to a person. Hallelujah! Oh wait. I actually got through to some background office noise, then they HUNG UP ON ME. So, even if you do get through to a real live person, chances are they'll hang up on you too. Gah, even the memory makes me want to Godzilla something.

Whenever I'm ringing and it goes to 'Press 1 for this' I hold down on the 0, works everytime. You get straight through, or you cut the queue of people waiting. Its funny when we get one of those 'You have just won a trip to florida' phonecalls, hold down 0, And you just hear a muffly sound, then they hang up, and never ring again because they know we're smarter than them :D

I do EXACTLY what Aimee does, I don't listen to any of it, I just press 0.

I do remember a call one time relating to the electricity when we moved in to the house about 8 years ago - we'd been here 6 months and not gotten an Electric bill. I was on hold for almost a half an hour, transferred to several different departments, and finally got through to someone who told me the house didn't exist. Right. Ended up writing a few "strongly worded letters" (my favourites) and got it sorted. I actually hate using the phone. Hate it. I get flustered and always think of good stuff to say when I've hung up.

As somene who works in a call centre it really gets on my nerves when people press the wrong numbers!! I used to work for Satelite TV company (yeah them) and people just press whatever (like 0) get the wrong department then complain when they need to be transfered, if your going to play that game, dont complain when you get someone in sales and you want to cancel!

Now I work for a company who cut you off if there is no one to take you call. Last year we had massive queues and at £1.20pm folks complained to ofcom. So now if theres no one to take you call it gets disconected before you start to get charged at £1.23pm (yes the price went up) and you've guessed people complain about there being no hold or queue.

Although how anyone can go through 1, 3, 5 and not know who they've called.... Oh they say thought I was calling the gas company!

My bloody doctors do this - hang up on you that is - and they're real people! At least I think so, the receptionist is dead behind the eyes though, and is the type to quiz you about your symptoms to decide if you're ill enough to be seen.

What happens is, you ring up at 8.29 am and get the message "Group Practice is currently closed, we open at 8.30, if you have an emergency...blah blah blah". You press redial repeatedly, until suddenly it changes from this message to "all our operators are busy, please hold", listen to this for half a bloody hour and then they put the fucking phone down! Gah!

And yes, I feel your pain re selecting from options, especially if you then have to enter a personal identification number which you didn't realise you needed, so you have to hang up and pull some bit of paper out of the recycling bin, redial, enter the number, hit the hash key...

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